Now, at 23, he's got his first bona fide lead role, playing a teenager who gets sucked into his television set and thrown into the black-and-white '50s sitcom known as "Pleasantville." The film, which co-stars Reese Witherspoon, William H. Macy, Joan Allen and Jeff Daniels, is a joyfully clever and enjoyable fantasy that may just be the turning point in Maguire's burgeoning career.

The film is sure to get rave reviews from the critics and could very possibly be a contender in the Oscar race at year's end -- it is that good. So it will very likely mark a huge change in Maguire's recognizibility factor, bringing his name and face into clear focus for many moviegoers.

That's a fact that obviously concerns Maguire -- especially since he's been friends with Leonardo DiCaprio since they made "This Boy's Life" together in 1993, and he's seen firsthand what mega-movie stardom can do to an actor's everyday life.

"I've watched Leo go through his stuff, and I think he's done a good job," says Maguire, who still looks young enough to be a teenager.

"And I think it's really a test of who you are. Especially for somebody on that level, and with what's happened to him. Some of it's disheartening, what people do. But you just shrug it off, and laugh at it, and go, 'That's what happens.'

"I've been around when people have tried to pick fights with Leo. They start yelling obscenities and things at him, to try to antagonize him."

Despite those secondhand experiences, when you get right down to it, Maguire is willing to have some of that fallout of fame come his way. "I don't know, actually, if I am ready. We'll see. I definitely knew I was doing a movie ["Pleasantville"] that was budgeted at $40 million, and when a studio spends $40 million, they want to make the money back, so they're gonna try to get people to see it," he says with a shrug.

"You can control it to a point," Maguire continues earnestly. "I didn't have to do that movie. I didn't have to do 'Ride With the Devil,' [his next film, a Civil War epic directed by Ang Lee] which is a $30 million movie. I didn't have to do these films. I could go and do one- or two-million-dollar films, and lay low, and not do press. I don't know -- I'm just sort of going along for the ride. These doors have opened, and I'm just gonna see what happens. So I guess I am ready for it!"

It makes sense that Maguire feels ready to make the leap into true Hollywood stardom. After all, he has been striving toward this goal for half of his short life. And besides, he's really going to make his mother happy when he becomes a household name.

"My mother basically encouraged me to get into acting. And I just sort of did it...mainly to get out of school, I think," he laughs. "But she wanted me to get the chance because she didn't. There's one story she always tells. Her father was a construction worker for Disney and MGM. Back in the old days, he worked on all these films, and he helped build Disneyland, and 'It's a Small World,' and the Abe Lincoln thing there. And I know that there was an opportunity for her and her sisters to go audition for the Mouseketeers. And I think that her mom didn't let her. So maybe I was supposed to be her Mouseketeer or something!"

Despite his initial motivations for becoming an actor, things have distinctly changed in the last few years. "When I was a kid, it was all about being Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino and Dustin Hoffman and Jack Nicholson. I wanted to do gangster films, and go live with a boxer for a year -- whatever," Maguire remembers, smiling. "But then it changes. Somewhere along the way it caught me, and I realized that it's an interesting job, and that I could keep learning. Then the whole perfectionist thing kicked in, so I could drive myself crazy for many years, trying for that. Now I just want to check out my opportunities, and do the best I can."

"Pleasantville" is sure to prove that Maguire's best is certainly worth watching -- and that his is definitely a name (and face) to remember.